eSpace “incubates” nascent aerospace entrepreneurs
I came across this article on CNN by accident this afternoon. It’s about a partnership between SpaceDev and the University of Colorado, called eSpace. The goal of this non-profit is to help aerospace entrepreneurs break into the market and learn how to build to NASA specs while minimizing the growing pains involved.
eSpace was founded by Scott Tibbetts, whom we may all know better as the founder of SpaceDev. He knows what it’s like to go through that process and decided there needed to be an organization to help mentor new companies entering the field. A (literally) big part of the work is done through The Incubator, a testing facility that provides vacuum chambers, vibration testing equipment, and other aerospace development tools that would be difficult or too expensive for small businesses to acquire themselves.
The Center for Space Exploration (it’s official title) is also investing in the next generation of explorers by providing funding for graduate projects to design aerospace hardware with commercial applications and grants for helping place promising candidates in industry.
Personally, I think this is brilliant. It’s a perfect partnership between industry and academia to meet the needs of our field. I’ll be interested to see what comes out of it.
2 Responses to “eSpace “incubates” nascent aerospace entrepreneurs”
Leave a Reply
scott tibbitts exec dir. espace on March 2nd, 2009
it has been great to realize that there are a large number of individuals and organizations that are their resonating with the vision of eSpace. But first, to set the record straight before I am credited with something undeserved, Jim Benson, a great space visionary was the progenitor of SpaceDev. I founded Starsys Research Corporation which was acquired by SpaceDev about 3 years ago.
It has been great fun since the launch of eSpace to see the companies that are contacting us to connect with what we are doing. I’ve been in the space biz for 20 years, and had no idea of some of the really innovative, businesses out there, sometimes just a couple of smart engineers, doing some really great stuff. As a case in point, one company that contacted us, Zybek Advanced Products, here in Boulder. Turns out they make lunar soil…not the real thing, but an exact duplicate. They take raw material and subject it to Plasma, which fuses it in the same way as lunar soil is fused and then this can be used by folks working on lunar habitats, rovers etc. They make tons of the material. Have a thriving business doing this. I’m trying to get over there to say the plasma gun at work.
We’ll keep you posted. There is much going on as we connect with and support these companies in doing great good.
Scott
Justin on March 2nd, 2009
Thanks for the heads-up. That’ll teach me to take a CNN article at face value without double-checking the attribution.